"You need someone to to teach you again the first principles of God's word. You need milk, not solid food; for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their faculties trained by practice to distinguish good from evil." Hebrews 5, v.12-16.

Paul in 1 Corinthians 3, v.1-9 picks up the same theme, that while people are still of the flesh they are not ready for solids but are still being fed with milk, with baby food. They are more of the flesh when they argue whose they are, belonging to Paul or to Apollos, for they fail to see that one planted, another watered and God gave the growth. They do not belong to God's workers, as entrusted by Him, but to God. They are God's field, God's building. In fact he goes on to say that the body is the Temple through whom God will display His glory by the Holy Spirit dwelling in the body. Thus the believer needs to live a life of holiness.

So how do we use Lent to improve our holiness and better recognise and make space for God? We may even wonder if we will ever be weaned spiritually to extend the idiom of spiritual maturity. Just as a child's first book is about recognising words and knowing a story and putting sentences together, so our spiritual journey has similar markers. Some perhaps never get further than waving the Bible about, like a first story book, but never reading it. Others may continue with just as milky a diet by swallowing the stories but never thinking about them, using the Bible as a reference book without entering into the spirit of the content.

Holiness is about being set apart for God, therefore about making room for God in daily life and in the decisions that confront us. Holiness can be seen as a wholeness, whereby we try, to a greater rather than to a lesser extent, to orientate life and our responses round God. God becomes our reference point, without being totally littoral about it. The danger to beware is to mistake holiness for piety. Spirituality is about what we become, not merely take on board. Piety is about habits that are the baby's diet, whether devotions or deeds. Spirituality is about opening up to the spirit and so reaching out to God - trying to grasp the way, the truth and the life that is Christ, Christ on earth as man and Christ risen.

We should find, therefore, many different paths prepared by various leaders, mentors, spiritual directors or priests leading to a more solid diet in the hopes of deepening our spirituality. Do be prepared this Lent to explore some of them, either through what is available locally, or asking advice, or by settling down with a good book. It is about absorbing and being absorbed. It's not what you give up, and thereby increase your burden, but what you take on, and thereby lighten the load ..................    T H

"Our" Universe and Us

2. Gifts and Perils from the Heavens

In the earlier Old Testament stories about Palestine there are records of man's defiant attitude to the skies, and of what help or set-back could come from those sources. The chief of an armed band, Joshua, gives his commands to the heavens as he prepares for battle - no mincing of words here:

"Sun, stand thou still in Gibeon

And thou moon in the valley of Aijalon"
These are real places mentioned in Judges 5 v.20-21; I would love to know if both statements could be simultaneously fulfilled. But I'm no astronomer - let alone one with pre-1000 B.C. data! In the triumphant Song of Deborah, the Judge, after her commander's victory 'at Taanach, by the waters of Megiddo' sings: "the stars in their courses fought against Sisera". Flash floods could turn the course of history, and did so at Taanach. They are still powerful sometimes in some regions! I recall being in South India, and in the area, when such a torrent swept down a gorge that a bridge, with passenger train on it, was carried away right to the sea. The bridge, train and all aboard disappeared for ever. Imagine what microcosms we felt!

From the story of Saul, David and Jonathan, we see that in around 1000 B.C. that clan met regularly to eat together at New Moon. To absent oneself, without leave properly obtained, was a serious offence - as if the New Moon was witness to the oaths of loyalty renewed by the common meal, which were ratified from on High by this act.

Psalm 8 v.1-4 and 19 v.1-6, for example, celebrate this in song. We do not follow the course of the Psalms in public worship today so often, but shoudn't forget the treasures there. We see there God is moving inward from the majesty without, through the common bonds, and He will call whom He will to His service.
Next month: Genesis and genesis.
MIRIAM HANSON